This is the second edition of OOMPH, Change by Design's newsletter. Last month I was privileged to deliver a couple of major speeches to Association CEOs, consultants, and business owners, including my April 9 presentation to association CEOs at the Florida Society of Association Executive's (FSAE) CEO Roundtable. My presentation's topic, 'Grace & Grit: How to be a Peacemaker in Work and in Life' was about distinguishing between peacekeeping and peacemaking. To summarize:
Peacekeeping alone simply doesn't work. It imposes 'you shalt do' on others or mollifies them with rewards or perks. It's a bandaid. Peacekeeping makes things look like they're ok, but doesn't fundamentally solve underlying problems…
Our society in the United States of America is infused with a capitalist mindset. We typically assign the highest value to desired results when they are developed and delivered effectively and efficiently. For example, “convenience” often yields a premium price, as does a novel product. Take a straw poll in your board room, and you’ll find most of us agree that is exactly how it should be. We would not be in business if it weren’t the case.
Change by Design is happy to announce that we have been engaged again by this highly valued client. For this project, they have asked us to deliver a set of eLearning modules focused on a clinical treatment called cognitive adaptation training (CAT).
Since late February 2021, Change by Design has been hard at work on behalf of a large Florida non-profit based in Jacksonville, Florida. One of the client’s main workforce issues has been an increasing lack of skills or mismatch of skills to the underlying culture of the organization. Business acumen and dealing with ambiguity are the hallmarks of many professionals, so correcting these cultural competency issues has become a major priority.
Welcome to the inaugural issue of Change By Design's newsletter, OOMPH! Because this is the first one, we wanted to make 100% sure that our readers didn't misinterpret the name. So: OOMPH isn't 00MPH (zero miles-per-hour). That wouldn't be very inspiring.
Instead, OOMPH represents impact measured one effective project at a time. Each month OOMPH! will present articles, ideas, and recommendations designed to help subscribers achieve greater organizational alignment. We strive to deliver timely, meaningful, actionable tools for business decision-makers, nonprofit leaders, government-focused professionals, and performance improvement practitioners. And we'll also be letting you know what's going on in our Change by Design world. This is an exciting moment for us, and we're hoping the newsletter is very useful to you.
Achieving meaningful organizational change requires you to understand context across multiple problems. It can include identifying internal and external factors, appreciating broader historical significance or momentum, and important consideration of the “people” and “system” involved.
